


Lost Friends

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-04-19
Updated: 1996-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian Callahan has had a lot of experience handling the death of his loved ones. So why does the death of two of his favorite agents feel so wrong? He has help in his search for the truth about their deaths, but can an unnamed informant really lead him to the ones responsible?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Brian Callahan is an OMC that was introduced in Lincoln in the Snow.

_People just die._ It was a mantra for him, the only way he had survived his thirteenth birthday--and all the birthdays after that. He looked down at the gravestones before him and repeated it to himself. _People just die._

Today, he didn't want to believe it. Today, it sounded like a hollow placation--something to make him feel better. But he didn't want to feel better.

He wanted them not to be dead.

A short, dark-haired woman--wisps of grey only starting to grace her temples--stepped up to him and laid a hand on his arm.

"Hello, Brian," she said quietly. "It was good of you to come."

Brian Callahan wrapped the older woman in his arms. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Scully..." He looked around. "Are the boys here?"

Margaret Scully smiled up at him gently, the foot-or-more distance making her crane her neck to look into his eyes. "They've gone back to the house to... to make sure everything is ready." She tightened her grip on his arm. "Will you come with me?"

He looked back at the gravestones, that hollow platitude ringing in his mind. "Of course. Just give me a second."

He watched the spare woman walk away before crouching in front of the grey marble stones. His hand trailed tenderly across the name of the left one. "Dana," he breathed quietly. "I'm still sorry I didn't sweep you off your feet when I had the chance." He glanced at the right one. The one on the outside of the Scully plot. His mother had died a few months ago, and Margaret, knowing his relationship with his family, had asked that he be buried with her children. The third son she'd always loved. He lay there now, with Dana and her sister. There was a marker for her father, though he rested at sea now, where he had always been most at home. His wife would join him there one day, and a demure little marker would take its place below her husband's. They'd be together. Like Spooky and Dana.

The thought made him smile. "Spooky," he whispered to his friend, "you deserved her." He rose with a quiet sigh. "Be happy, you two. You have your chance now."

Margaret Scully stood quietly by his car, her hands clasped before her. She looked up at him and smiled.

"Don't tell me your sons just left you here?"

She smiled wider. "I told them to. I knew you'd give me a ride home."

* * *

He drove in silence for a while, before stealing a look at her. She was pale, but calmer than he would have given her credit for. Calmer than he was. He wondered if she had just had too much loss in the last couple of years to be able to muster some sort of wild display. He wondered when she'd shed her tears.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

She shrugged, tired and sad. "I... I knew she was getting into a dangerous business when she joined... I just never thought... I had hoped things would be different..."

* * *

The wake was a small affair, only her family and a few friends. 

The Assistant Director sat quietly to one side, his wife, still looking slightly frail, sitting beside him. He seemed--at least, to Brian--to be trying to convince himself that none of it was affecting him. It didn't seem to be working. Brian was well aware of the affection their reserved superior harbored for his two troublesome agents, and losing them to what must have seemed such a mundane case was obviously taking its toll.

"Hello, sir," Brian addressed Skinner quietly. He still felt guilty, though he knew there was little he could have done to stop this tragedy.

Skinner nodded his greeting silently.

"How is Carl?" Sharon Skinner asked, concern coloring her rich voice.

At that, Brian smiled sadly. "He's doing better, thanks, Mrs. Skinner." His smile turned wry. "He won't be running any marathons any time soon, but he should be out of the hospital next week."

They spoke quietly for a few moments, mostly to be social--though none of them were feeling it. Brian bowed out as quickly as he could, unable to stand before his superior and make small talk. Not when he felt so responsible for what had happened. He retreated to the front porch, hoping to get a few moments to compose himself.

He wasn't going to get it.

Sal Menschner sat on the swing, a glass of straight vodka in her hand, staring morbidly out at the beautiful Maryland landscape.

"Hey, Sal," he greeted her quietly, leaning carefully over the banister nearby. She turned to him then, and he could see she'd been crying.

"Hi, Brian," she returned in a tiny voice. "How you doing?"

He shrugged, turning toward her, the railing digging painfully into his back. At this point, he'd take any distraction from the pain in his heart. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head truthfully, willing herself not to cry again. "You know... A year ago, Dana was planning his funeral... Then he just..."

"Showed up like a dream," Brian finished quietly, remembering Dana's anguish, her anger. She'd been brutal with a number of her friends--himself included, during those few, painful days before Mulder had shown himself after that fiasco in New Mexico. He'd give a lot right now for her to be here to freeze him out.

* * *

He mulled over the wake as he drove back into the Virginia countryside. Everyone had seemed almost to expect this. He supposed her mother had dealt with her daughter's death two years ago, when Dana had gone missing for those three painful months. He supposed as well, given the tears he shed as he drove, that he hadn't.

While he hadn't been injured in the incident, he had been given a few days to rest and deal with the aftermath. Two agents dead, his partner seriously wounded... Tallor and Skinner had both thought he needed the time. He tried to take it easy, tried not to think about it too much, but as he drove up the estate's driveway, his mind ran the incident over and over.

* * *

_Six days earlier  
Washington D.C._

"This is the place." Scully's voice held that same suppressed excitement that it always did when she knew they were close to the truth. She turned around in her seat to address the two men in the back. "We'll go in first. You guys keep an eye on things from out here."

Brian slid out of the car, replacing Mulder in the driver's seat. He rolled down his window as Carl slipped into the seat Scully had just vacated. "You guys be careful, Spook," he warned. "Remember, these aren't your little grey men we're talking about. Being a traitor makes a guy willing to take risks."

Mulder had smiled at his friend's sarcasm, slamming the clip home in his Glock and priming it. "Reardon and Fallon aren't what I'd call hardened criminals, Bri," he reassured him. "More just scared turncoats."

"It's the frightened ones who shoot first and think later, Mulder," Carl had warned.

He'd been right. Mulder and Scully had barely entered the old warehouse when the men in the car heard shots ring out. Carl was five steps ahead of him as Brian ran toward the scene. He was shooting before Carl even fell.

There had been a meeting--suitably morose--in Skinner's office the morning after the incident. The Assistant Director had been stony, seemingly unfeeling, but the anger coming off of him had silently accused the lone, unscathed agent.

"Would you like to give me some explanation of what happened last night, Agent Callahan?" Skinner had asked impassively, zeroing in on Brian, ignoring the four, faceless officials that flanked his seat at the conference table.

"Sir," Brian had begun slowly, his head never coming up to meet his superior's eyes. "Mulder received some... information... about possible whereabouts for the missing CIA agents. He wanted to check it out as quickly as possible."

He chanced a glance at Skinner, and mentally damned himself for his words. It sounded like he was trying to foist all the blame on Mulder--like it was his own fault. Before Skinner could open his mouth, Brian broke in again. "He seemed to think they'd be leaving the warehouse fairly quickly, and he didn't want to lose them. Agent Mossey and I happened to be in his office at the time, sir, and--"

"And you thought you'd go off and apprehend them yourselves?" Skinner finished for him. His voice immediately softened, though it was still slightly accusatory. "Did anyone think to call for backup?"

Brian hung his head, whispering quietly. "Carl and I _were_ the backup, sir."

* * *

_Callahan Residence  
10:30 pm_

Lynn assured him once again that Carl was mending, sleeping peacefully. He would be out of the hospital next week, as planned, and ready to go back to work a couple of weeks after that. Brian hung up the phone tiredly, trying not to think. He didn't need that right now. What he needed was to forget. But his mind just wouldn't let him.

Each time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Dana turning to him in the car, her face a little flushed with excitement. She had been sure that they would catch them, that it would all be all right.

He sighed and finished off his fourth tumbler of whiskey, barely feeling the buzz. He wanted to feel nothing, to know nothing. But as he drifted slowly towards sleep, his mind would not let the matter rest.

* * *

_Six days earlier  
Washington D.C._

"Look Spook," Brian said quietly. "If you're right, and there is a bigger conspiracy here than just a couple of CIA thugs who've decided to turn traitor, then why doesn't the Secret Service get into this? Or the CIA themselves? I mean, why leave it to a handful of FBI agents to solve the case?"

Mulder had looked at him with all-too-candid eyes. "Maybe the government doesn't want the case solved."

Carl had leaned forward from his perch on the desk, his voice, as always, high and reedy. "What do you mean, Mulder?"

Mulder shrugged. "Think about it. These guys are selling biological weapons information... Maybe it's information people in our government _want_ to get out."

Brian shook his head. "You're crazy, Mulder."

"Maybe," Mulder conceded, as he reached for his ringing phone. "Maybe. Mulder." He looked up at Brian, eyebrows raised. "You're sure? ... All right... Yes, I can get there... Okay... Okay, thanks. Bye."

"What?" Brian asked.

"I think I've got a lead on where Reardon and Fallon are." He jotted down an address and grabbed the phone again. "Scully? It's me. I've got a line on them. Okay, I'll meet you in the garage. Bye."

He rose, tension sliding quickly along in his stride. "You guys want to come?" he asked, turning toward them as he grabbed his trench coat. "We'll probably need backup."

Brian and Carl had exchanged a look, and nodded, following Mulder to the underground parking garage.

Scully met them there, always a slightly impish smile for her former lover--a smile that never failed to make Brian blush. She turned to her partner, the smile warming slightly even as it faded. "What do you have?" she asked, suddenly all business.

"An old warehouse," Mulder replied, handing her the piece of paper he'd used to write down the address. They slipped into the car, buckling their seat belts as Mulder started it up. "The information I got says they might be there. If we can catch them soon, we just might be heroes." His sarcastic grin assured them they'd be anything but.

"Who do you get your information from, Mulder?" Carl asked from the back seat.

Mulder smiled. "I'll tell you that when your partner coughs up _his_ informants."

"Not likely, Spook," Brian replied with a smile. "Not likely at all."

> _He approached the door, reaching it just as Carl stepped into the warehouse's shadows, caught sight of a figure in the dark, his eyes shying away from the two prone agents before him, and started firing. He saw Carl fall before him as he brought the second traitor down._

* * *

Brian jolted awake, the image of three downed agents burned into his alcohol-fuzzed mind. They should have called for backup. Should have been more careful. His friends should never have died.

The harsh ringing of his phone jarred him from his morbid thoughts, and he glanced at the clock, knowing it was much too late for anyone to be calling him. He picked it up, tried not to let the whiskey slur his words. An attractive female voice was on the line.

"Good evening, Agent Callahan. I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Who is this?"

"A friend," she allowed evasively. "I wanted to convey my condolences on the loss of your friends. I hear your partner is doing much better, though. That's good to hear."

Brian held the receiver tightly. "Look, I don't know who you are, but--"

"Your friend Mulder got some bad information, I guess," she continued flawlessly. "Maybe his informants aren't so clever after all." She paused a moment, her tone darkening. "Maybe he was looking for something _they_ don't want him to find..."

Brian stared at the phone quizzically as she hung up.

* * *

_FBI Headquarters  
The Next Day_

Brian tried the door of his friends' office, unsurprised when it opened easily. The crew would be coming in soon to clear it out--lock the files away where _they_ had always wanted them to be, box up what little remained of one man's life's work.

The big agent sighed as he walked around the desk, searching for anything Mulder might have left behind him. Something that would connect with the lovely female voice from last night.

He'd thought hard about what she had intimated, had stayed up all night trying to figure it out. _Them._ The Syndicate. Somehow, the woman seemed to think they were behind it all.

Which meant that Spooky had been right.

Someone in the government had not wanted the truth to be known about what Reardon and Fallon were really up to. Someone who had killed two of his friends to keep the information from coming to light.

Someone Brian wanted to meet--and hurt--very badly.

There was little to find in Spooky's belongings--no names, no information. He supposed it had been a long shot anyway. Mulder wasn't likely to keep any information he might have just lying around. Brian sighed and headed back to his own office. He wished now that Dana and Spooky had told him more about their "adventures," as he called them. They kept silent, they'd said, to keep him safe. Still, more information would have made his search easier.

He was surprised, when he reached his office, to find a white envelope sitting quietly on his desk. No name, no address. Just there.

Brian waited until he got home that night to examine the envelope's contents. When he was done, he was only slightly less in the dark then when he'd begun.

Half of the papers enclosed were long lists--of what, he didn't know--while the other half were a motley collection of half-blacked-out internal memos. They discussed projects with names like Thought Binder and Purity Control. He had absolutely no idea what to make of any of it, until he came to a memo, cryptic in it's censorship, which started his mind whirling.

> `XXXXXXXX`  
>  XXXXXXXX  
>  Re: Thought Binder/Purity Control  
>  Merchandise will be reacquired per XXXXXX and subjected to full XXXXXX.  
>  Given subject's unfortunate response to XXXXXX, subject will be moved  
>  into group 445 for XXXX XXXXXX. Subject's partner is to be terminated,  
>  pending approval of XXXXXXXX.

He sat thinking for a moment. He had always been astounded by Mulder and Scully's abilities to put two and two together. Generally, Spook came up with eight--occasionally even ten. But sometimes he was right. More often, however, Dana's logical, scientific four was a lot more plausible. But as his mind churned away, his eyes glancing back at the memo from time to time, Brian began to realize that, maybe just this once, straight math wasn't what was called for.

Was this all a trap for Mulder and Scully, he wondered. Had Reardon and Fallon been a screen? The case had been assigned to the X-Files team immediately, the reasoning being that Mulder was one of the finest profilers they had, and Scully their best pathologist. They were often asked to consult on... "non-abnormal" cases. It wasn't that unusual.

Bri and Carl had been asked in after the fact, as had a few other agents, but from the beginning, it had been Mulder and Scully's case. Maybe Spook had been right. Maybe this was a case where the CIA didn't police their own because they didn't _want_ to.

Which meant something had gone wrong with the operation. If the memo meant what Brian thought it did, then one of them was meant to be captured, not killed.

He shook his head. It had to be Scully, right? She had been abducted by person or persons unknown, and while the duo had refused to tell him anything about their findings, he knew Scully and Mulder both thought that the government had been involved.

So the plan had been to kill Mulder, and take Scully back. But someone had screwed up, and now they were both dead. And someone else was trying to help him discover the people responsible.

He was still puzzling it through when the phone rang. It was just midnight.

"Callahan."

That silky voice again. "Did you find the information... interesting, Agent Callahan?"

"Who did it?" he asked angrily. "Who was behind it all?"

She avoided the questions. "Go to 332 East Milwaukee. The packages entrance in back. Someone will meet you there. Forty-five minutes." She hung up quietly.

As he drove, Brian tried to figure out what the point to all of this was. Why did this woman--whoever the hell she was--want him to pursue this? What was her cut in the bargain? He didn't like it at all, and yet... And yet, if it let him bring down the people behind his friends' deaths...

He pulled up behind the warehouse and got out, gun ready at his side.

A tall man blended with the shadows, his voice imposing. "Good evening, Agent Callahan," he said quietly. "You've come looking for information."

Brian smiled cynically. "I came because a sexy-sounding woman told me to. Who am I to refuse?"

"You'll be a fitting replacement for Agent Mulder," the dark man said dispassionately.

"Just what I've always wanted," Brian quipped coldly. "Who killed them?"

"It's much bigger than just your friends, Mr. Callahan," the man replied, sticking another white envelope out of the darkness toward him. "This conspiracy goes beyond anything Mulder ever dreamed."

Brian smiled again, this one hard and painful. "I can see why Mulder got along with you. You're as paranoid as he was."

"Agent Mulder is no longer a player, Mr. Callahan. _He_ didn't have the guts to follow it through." The man stepped slightly out of the shadows, a hint of his strong, dark features coming into view. "Do you?"

"Follow _what_ through?" Brian asked, angry now. "Look, I just want to know who killed them. And I want to know why."

The man seemed to ignore him, fading back into the shadows. "You'll be contacted again." And he was gone. Interview over.

Brian opened the second envelope, dreading what he'd find. This one was slimmer, and it held only four sheets of paper, stapled together in pairs. Each was again highly censored, via a thick black marker, but they looked to be medical charts, and the names at the top were frighteningly readable:

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully...

* * *

_Menschner Residence  
2:30 am_

Sal was ready to tear the head off of whoever stood beyond her front door. Two-thirty in the morning, and someone had decided to pay her a visit. God, she'd only just got to the point, after what had happened last week, where she could do more than sit and stare at the walls all night. A late night visitor was all she needed.

Brian Callahan stood before her as she threw open the door in anger. He smiled lightly at her. "You look like that lady on Little House on the Prairie," he quipped.

She grabbed the thick braid of her hair, and threw it back over her shoulder, glaring at him. "Now, you'd better have an even better reason to be here than I wanted when you woke me up," she hissed, gesturing him into the apartment.

"Oh, it's good," he assured her glumly, handing off the medical sheets he'd been given earlier that night.

Sal took them cautiously, flipping from one chart to the other more quickly as she realized what she was looking at.

"Where did you get these, Brian?" she asked quietly, sitting down on the couch in her darkened living room. "For all that they're short, these records are amazingly complete. And they have a lot of information that wouldn't be in a normal medical sheet." She pointed out a long paragraph that had been completely blacked out. "What about this area here on Dana's records?"

Brian shrugged, pointing to the incidents listed above and below it. "It looks to me like it must be from when she was missing."

Sal's bright eyes darkened in remembered anger. "Where did you get these, Brian?" she asked again.

He blew out his breath in frustration. "Someone contacted me, handed off those sheets and this big bundle." He handed her the first sheaf of papers. "She said that Spook and Dana had been looking for something that wasn't meant to be found. I guess this information is supposed to help me find out what that something was."

Sal had been looking through the large stack of papers that he'd given her, as he spoke. She looked up from them. "I don't know what the memos are for, but these charts look like gene-mappings."

Brian perked up. "Gene-mappings for what?"

She frowned, shook her head. "I don't know. I can find out, though... maybe." She thought for a moment. "There's a man at Georgetown..."

Brian stood up, restless energy making him pace. He seemed to be on the verge of a discovery. A discovery that he had an idea he'd have a hard time believing. "Did Dana tell you anything about what happened when Spook spent that month in the hospital in Alaska?"

She shrugged. "A little. She said that he'd been exposed to some sort of retrovirus."

He shook his head. "No, I mean about his sister. Remember? She showed up at their parents' house, and a few days later, they fished her out of the river?" He hadn't got his information from the pair of adventurers. His contacts ran pretty deep, and he'd been curious as to what had happened to his friend to lead him all the way to near death in Alaska. "Only something happened to her. Dana seemed to think it was the same retrovirus that Spook got in the north..."

Sal was hooked now. "And what did Fox think?"

"He said something about things not being what they seemed." Bri shook his head. "He wouldn't tell me any more, but he also said that that woman wasn't his sister."

Sal stared back at the gene-maps. "I'm going to let my friend at Georgetown look at these, okay? I don't really know enough about this stuff to even venture a guess."

Bri turned a warm smile on her. "Thanks for helping, Sal."

"If you're right, we might be able to find out exactly why they died," Sal returned evenly. "That's something I want to know."

* * *

_Callahan Residence_

Brian mulled it all over in his head, coming up with the most fantastic theories. He dwelt particularly on the incident with Mulder's sister last year. He didn't know what his mind was cooking up, but, whatever it was, it was sure to be hard to swallow. His mind was taking leaps and bounds that it had never dreamed of before.

He chuckled coldly as he downed another tumbler of scotch. "Maybe Spooky has possessed me," he joked feebly.

The phone chose that moment to ring. "Callahan."

"How goes the investigation, Agent Callahan," his sweet-voiced informant asked.

"It doesn't," he replied irritably. "Just cut through the crap and tell me what's going on here."

Her voice became chiding. "Perhaps I picked the wrong man for this job," she said disparagingly. "I've given you enough for you to solve this little mystery."

"This isn't a little mystery," Brian exclaimed angrily. "This is about the deaths of two of my friends! I want to know what you know about it. No riddles, no 'clues,' just information!"

She was silent for a moment. "Look closely at the information you've already been given, Agent Callahan. The truth is there. And things are not what they seem in this case..." Her voice grew quiet. "They seldom are."

Brian was left with a dial tone and a racing mind.

_The Pentagon_

Palladin hung up the phone, considering. Callahan was perhaps not the best choice for this job. Still, Barrons would have gone to Skinner almost immediately, and when it came to his two favorite agents, subtlety wasn't one of Walter's strong points. He'd bust right in and threaten the syndicate, and that would destroy any hopes she had of winning this round.

At least Callahan seemed well-motivated. She remembered what her old assistant had said, when she'd worried about Mulder and his propensity to fly off in five directions at once when the truth was close.

"With Mulder, you'll always know that the truth is more important than his life," he'd said philosophically, in that melodic voice of his. "It makes for a very devoted hunter."

Hopefully, Callahan was as devoted. Her own connections would be of no use to her in this. They were too exposed. She knew all about this handsome agent--all about the many contacts he had. The search would take more time, but it would undoubtedly be safer for all involved...

* * *

Margaret Scully dreamed, as she had dreamed each night since her daughter died. She dreamed of the Cape on a clear, cool day in April. Dana and her father were out in his new skiff, a skiff that Maggie felt was just a bit too small for the waves that sometimes washed over the little bay.

Still, she yielded to her husband's judgment. He'd lived on the sea for years, and he would never do anything the might get Dana hurt. He claimed he never played favorites, but the look in his eyes when Dana smiled told the true story.

So Maggie sat on the beach, watching her husband and her ten-year-old daughter as they practiced tacking around the bay.

Dana grunted with the effort to pull the sail around as they headed back toward shore. Maggie smiled as Bill showed the little girl how to lean away from it gradually, letting her weight do the work. She could see her daughter's smile clearly as the small girl accomplished the maneuver.

The day was lazy, increasingly warm, and Maggie found herself dozing. She woke just as a gust of wind blew the sail back, knocking her little girl into the sea.

Maggie was on her feet in a second, calming as she saw Dana break the surface, heard her husband's barrel laugh boom across the tired bay.

He gestured for Dana to climb back into the boat, but with a stubbornness she'd inherited from him, the little redhead shook her head furiously and turned toward the shore, swimming with strokes more sure and powerful than a girl her age ought to have.

She'd almost reached her mother when a phone call shattered Maggie's dream world.

Still half asleep, Margaret Scully reached for the phone. "Dana?"

There was silence on the other end, then a deep male voice replied, perplexed. "Mom?"

"Oh, hi, Bill." Margaret sat up, looking at the clock and wishing her son would think about the time difference between the coasts. "It's 11:30, Honey."

His voice turned sheepish. "Man, I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't think... Listen, I know we talked just briefly about it at Dana's funeral, but Janet's still wondering whether you want to come up for a while. We'd really love to have you."

The love and concern in her son's voice would normally have been enough to convince her to go, but she'd realized finally what those dreams really meant.

She had to be here when her daughter got back.

"Maybe at the end of the month, Bill," she replied apologetically.

There was silence for a moment. When he spoke, her son's voice was tentative. "Mom... How are you doing? I mean _really?_ I know Dana's... I know it hurt you a lot to lose her... You just... You answered the phone like you expected it to be her."

Maggie smiled in the darkness, her heart beating strong for the first time since her daughter's funeral. "I... had a dream, Bill. I wasn't quite awake when I answered the phone. I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Honey. I'm sure." Her voice took on an amused, chiding tone. "If you didn't call in the middle of the night, you wouldn't have to worry."

Bill wasn't convinced, but his mother--like his little sister--was not one to talk about her feelings. "Okay, Mom," he said gently. "Listen, if you need anything, or you change your mind about coming up, give me a call, all right? I love you."

"I love you, too, Honey," his mother replied warmly. "Good night."

"Good night, Mom."

Margaret Scully hung up the phone, lying in the darkness and thinking. Missy had been the one who believed in the power of dreams. How strange then that Dana--who had felt her mother's dream "feelings" were a joke--should be the one who was so often the object of them. Those terrifying dreams she'd had while Dana was missing had been proof enough of their validity. But now she had proof of a different kind.

Proof that her baby girl was alive, and that she was on her way home.

* * *

_Reflecting Pool  
11:43 pm_

Sal worked her way through a pack of cigarettes, waiting for Brian to show up. Looking out at the calm, dark water, she smiled slightly.

Dana had once told her that she and Fox liked to meet here. It suited him. He seemed drawn to the shadows, yet he saw reflections of the truth in everything. Maybe, she thought, a wave of sadness rippling around her, maybe they had met at this very bench, coming together in the dark to try to bring the truth to light.

Which was just what she hoped she and Brian could do.

But, given what her friend at Georgetown had told her, she didn't think they were going to like the answers.

Brian slipped toward her in the darkness, and sat next to her, quiet for a moment, watching her final cigarette go out.

"So what did you find?" he asked in a whisper, turning from her to face the pool before them.

She handed over a sheaf of papers--the maps he had given her, along with some files from her friend. "I had a hard time getting Scott to talk about it, but it looks like I went to just the right person. He said they're from a cloning project in the eighties. It was called Gemini. Military. Very classified. That was all he'd tell me, so I dug up what I could on my own."

She sighed quietly, wishing for another cigarette. "The tests were apparently a tremendous failure. All the civilian doctors were taken off the project in '89, but there were rumors that the milis never gave up on it, and that they've succeeded in recent months." She took a deep breath. "Small successes, but..."

"But maybe success enough to produce a couple of convincing corpses," he finished for her.

Sal shook her head. "You mean you think they're still alive?" she asked incredulously.

Brian shrugged. "I... I don't know what to think, right now. But given what you've just told me... and given the medical charts..."

She sat still for a few moments, thinking it through. "They know Walter would never let it go if he thought they'd just disappeared--and he's proven very hard to get rid of lately," she added, smiling grimly at the hell the syndicate had put her godfather through in the past year. "If they were just killed in the line of duty... There'd be nothing he could do. You don't go searching for people when you've seen them buried."

The idea continued to roll through her mind, gathering more and more credence as it went along. But the bodies... A number of separate clues suddenly coalesced in her mind, and she turned to Brian angrily. "Maybe they didn't need convincing corpses."

"What do you mean?" He was a bit surprised that she had simply swallowed his vague notion whole. Maybe she knew more than he did.

"The pathologist who did the autopsies--Dr. Barker... He's military."

Brian stood up, started pacing. The extra bit of information only added to the overall picture. "He could have faked anything he wanted. Fingerprints, dental records..."

Sal nodded bleakly. "Once a respected, trusted pathologist was done with them..."

"No one would have asked any questions," Brian finished dismally. "But... But I was at the crime scene. I _saw_ them--"

Things were coming together a little too perfectly for Sal. "Didn't you think it strange that Reardon and Fallon aimed for their faces, Bri? Three bullets apiece." She dropped her eyes. "Simple plastic surgery could have made anyone pass that kind of examination."

Brian turned back from his pacing. "We have to get those bodies exhumed. Prove they weren't Dana and Mulder."

Sal shook her head. "It's too risky, Bri. The minute they know we're on to something, Fox and Dana really will be dead... I think that's probably why your mysterious little informant came to you. She obviously has contacts of her own, to get you the information she has, but maybe she's too high profile to go after this herself." She stood to face him. "We can't let anyone know we've got _anything_ on this."

Brian dropped his head, defeated. "So what do we do?"

"Find out all we can about whether Gemini is still in force. Where it might be located." She stood up. "But we have to be careful," she repeated. "If anyone finds out we know..."

Brian nodded. "I know of some unofficial channels we might go through." He turned as she started to leave. "What are you going to do?"

"I want to try to tap some of my own sources on this one," she replied, a vixen's smile gracing her lips for a moment. "I've got a few that even Mulder wouldn't dream of using."

* * *

_Menschner Residence  
8:42 pm_

Sal sat back, thinking. She'd used her "feminine wiles" to convince a friend at the pentagon to dig up some dirt for her--unofficially, of course.

What he'd come up with--even the small bit she'd already read--had blown her mind, and more than made up for having to spend two hours at dinner listening to him drone on about what a great catch he'd make. She smiled at that. He reminded her a lot of Brian--except that Callahan wasn't quite as blatant about it. And for him, it seemed to be a game, anyway. He didn't actually _think_ he was God's gift to women--he just thought that was the way he was supposed to act.

Taking a sip of tea, she poured over the files before her, trying to find anything that might tell her where Fox and Dana had been taken--and whether they could get them back.

She was shortly both infuriated and sick to her stomach.

* * *

_Callahan Residence  
9:14 pm_

"Hello?"

Brian smiled at the synthesized voice. These guys were as paranoid as Mulder. "I'm looking for the offices of the Lone Gunmen. A man named Byers?"

"You must have the wrong number."

"My name is Brian Callahan. I was a friend of Fox Mulder's."

"My condolences."

"They may not be needed," Brian replied curtly, suddenly a little sick of the game. "Is Mr. Byers there?"

"I'm sorry, sir. There's no one here by that name."

"It's just that I really need to speak with him," Brian stated seriously. "I was hoping to meet him in the park. Around 1:00?"

"I'd be sure to tell him, if I knew who he was," the slightly metallic voice replied before hanging up.

_Offices of the Lone Gunmen  
9:16 pm_

Langly stood, staring at the phone for a moment.

"Hey, Frohike," he called, gaining the annoyed attention of a small, dirty-looking man across the room. "What can you dig up on an FBI agent named Brian Callahan--quickly?"

_Jefferson Memorial  
1:23 am_

Brian paced, watching the shadows. It had taken him quite a few favors--some favors he'd never wanted to agree to--to come up with the Lone Gunmen's location. He knew Mulder had used them--though Mulder was tight enough with his informants that Brian hoped he wasn't turning to the wrong people for help--and they seemed the paranoid type who knew something. Something they shouldn't. He just hoped they knew what _he_ needed to know.

He doubted that these guys could resist this kind of riddle, but after twenty minutes, he was seriously beginning to wonder. He watched cautiously as a homeless man wandered aimlessly among the memorials, looking for a place to bed down for the night. Short and balding, the man wore what looked like rejects from the DAV. His glasses were crooked and his gloves had enough holes for an army of fingers.

After watching the bum settle in, Brian waited ten more minutes before heading out, passing that same bum as he made for his car. He was surprised to hear the man address him. "Leaving so soon, Agent Callahan?"

Brian stopped, made a pretense of checking his pockets for keys. "Mr. Byers?"

The scamp gave a shake of his head and a strange smile. "What's this about, Agent Callahan? We don't normally mix with the federal government."

"Unless it's to hack into their computers, I'll beat." Brian was tying his shoe now. "I have some information I'm trying to confirm about a federal employee you _did_ mix with--fairly frequently. Fox Mulder. We think he's still alive," he said, looking directly at the bum for the first time, watching the man's eyes widen. "Him and Scully both. But we need help finding them, and I know he trusts you." He stood carefully from his shoe-tying, turning away from the bum as if trying to remember where he'd parked. "What do you know about a project named Gemini?"

The man was evasive--and obviously still trying to get over the shock of this new information. "It was originally a Soviet project. Military got whiff of it about fifteen years ago and took it over. Violently, as I recall."

Brian nodded. "What about Thought Binder, or Purity Control?"

The bum was silent for a long time, seeming to be listening to voices in his head. "This isn't the place to talk about this, Agent Callahan." He took his time getting comfortable. "There's a van behind the Memorial. Get in it." And with that, he appeared to fall instantly asleep.

The van said it was a Municipal Electric vehicle, but the surveillance equipment in the back was definitely not standard issue. Neither were the rock star and the professor.

The professor stuck out his hand as Brian closed the door behind him. "Hello, Agent Callahan."

Brian took the proffered hand gingerly. "So you're the Lone Gunmen? Mulder told me a lot about you."

"Not likely," replied the rock star.

"Mulder knew how to keep secrets," the professor finished.

Brian nodded agreement, as, without a word, the rock star slid up into the driver's seat and started them moving.

"What makes you think Mulder's still alive?" the professor asked. "And why should we trust you?" He produced a large sheaf of papers. "You seem to be a very well-connected man, Agent Callahan. Senator for an uncle... Numerous..." he smiled meanly, " _friends,_ married to some of the most powerful men in Washington." He ignored the big agent's furious blush. "Why do you need to come to us?"

"Because," Brian replied, mastering his embarrassment with difficulty. "The information I'm going to need could be deadly if I got it through my... normal channels."

The professor nodded, "What information would that be?"

"I need to know where a project called Gemini is located."

"Gemini's been closed down for years," the rock star supplied from his spot in the driver's seat.

Brian glanced dismissively at him via the rearview mirror. "Tell that to Mulder and Scully. Whoever's running Gemini was the one who took them."

The professor exchanged a startled look with the rock star. "Whoever gave you that information is a lot better connected than we are, Agent Callahan," he stated coolly. "Gemini's obviously been buried so deeply that we might not be able to dig it up again."

"I thought," Brian observed carefully, "that you guys were able to come up with any information." He speared the professor with a damning glare. "And I'd think, given your friendship with Mulder, that you'd do whatever it took to get him back."

The professor looked at him angrily. "If what you say is true, we may not be _able_ to get them back."

"Why not?" Brian asked, fear taking over for the first time that night.

"Gemini wasn't a very stable project," the rock star volunteered seriously from the front. "It generally kills it's subjects in the attempt to clone them."

Brian sat and digested that for a moment. He couldn't give up now, though. "Can you find out where the project is located?"

The professor shook his head, exchanging a look with the rock star via the rear view mirror. "It'll be hard to find out. That project must be buried so deep in the government computers that we may not be able to find it at all, much less discover the headquarters of it." He opened the back door as the van came to a stop--directly behind Brian's parked sedan.

"We'll be in touch, Agent Callahan," he said dismissively.

* * *

 _J. Edgar Hoover Building_  
Washington, D.C.  
9:21 am

Walter Skinner plowed through yet another regular, boring case report. He decided suddenly that he would give almost anything to have one of Mulder's bizarre, blood-stained reports right now. He'd give a lot for the agent to show up right now--alive--just so he could have the pleasure of berating him. He took his glasses off, rubbing at the aching bridge of his nose.

Things had been awfully quiet the last week or so, he thought, standing and turning to the window behind him, staring sightlessly at the traffic below. No health insurance waivers to be signed, no calls from some random police captain in some backwater town, complaining about a certain FBI agent making endless problems for the locals.

And... no visits from a certain cigarette-smoking bastard. His office smelled like a regular, smoke-free office for the first time in nearly four years. He snorted sadly to himself, turning back to his work. He'd almost take the second-hand smoke, if he could figure out how to get Mulder and Scully back again--trouble and all.

_Quantico Medical Facility  
11:35 am_

Brian Callahan walked into Sal's neat little office, coming face to face with the most angry woman he'd ever seen. "Sal?" he asked worriedly.

"Close the door, Bri," she hissed. "I don't want to blow out anyone's eardrums."

"Except mine," he observed as he swung the door shut.

"Do you know what Gemini does, Brian?" she demanded suddenly, ignoring the wry comment.

"No... But they clone people, right?"

Sal snorted, firing up a smokeless ashtray and lighting a cigarette. This particular cancer stick was a new one for Brian, with an almost woodsmoke smell that matched Sal's fire perfectly. "They clone _something,_ alright!" She stood up and started pacing. "Basically, what they do is inject the... the _victim_ \--with a series of cloned bacteria... Bacteria that are supposed to _prepare_ the patient for cloning!"

"And..." Brian asked, drowning in even this shallow explanation.

"And?" she repeated furiously. " _And_ that very injection process begins to break down the person's own DNA in the space of about eight weeks." She leaned over to him suddenly, angry smoke escaping from her lips as she whispered, "Brian, don't you get it? They're not trying to clone people--they're trying to _grow_ a new species!"

"You can't be serious."

She took another long drag of her strange-smelling cigarette. "Can't I? There was apparently another program, very similar to Gemini," she said, her voice a kind of deadly quiet now. "They managed to keep that one pretty much secret--mostly by killing anyone who found out about it. Now, I couldn't get much about either project, but they both used... unusual samples of DNA to mutate their 'subjects'."

Brian sat forward. "What kind of DNA?"

Sal stubbed out her cigarette, and stared at him frustratedly. "I couldn't find that out! Apparently, though, this other project was a lot more successful than Gemini. They've been trying to reproduce the results for a couple of years now."

"Why did they close down the first project, if it was working?"

"Someone found out about it. I couldn't find out more than that, but these gene maps... Scott must have kept his mouth shut because he was afraid they'd find out he'd been talking."

"Sal," Brian said carefully. "How do you know this information is legitimate?" He held up under her vicious glare. "Maybe they're trying to throw us off the track."

"I trust the informant, Bri."

Brian sighed angrily. "Spooky trusted his informants too, Sal."

_J. Edgar Hoover Building  
2:21 pm_

Brian's head was reeling as he headed back to his office. Sal had seemed so adamant about it all--but to try to create another... another species? That was years and years away, surely. No one could actually mutate a human being! It was science-fiction!

Still, even if she was wrong about her suspicions, the danger this amorphous Gemini project posed to his missing friends wasn't to be denied. No matter what was being done to them, he needed to find them soon.

If they were _really_ still alive.

God, he hated himself for thinking it, but he couldn't shake that streak of logic in him that declared solidly that he had seen their bodies, had run his hand down Dana's cold face--the coldly logical part of him that demanded that he give them up for dead and move on.

He'd listened to that part of himself all his life--he'd _had_ to--but now, it just didn't seem that logical. The insanity of the situation made his most commonsense thoughts null and void.

He sighed as he entered his office, noting absently, once again, that Carl should have been at his desk-- _would_ have been, if not for whatever strange plot had maneuvered them all into that warehouse that night.

The ringing phone caught him off-guard. "Callahan."

"Take a walk, Agent Callahan," the slightly metallic voice said. "It's warm if you go north."

Brian stared at the silent phone for a moment, before rushing to the door.

_2:58 pm_

Brian was tired of walking. He was tired of waiting. He wanted answers, and he was damn well going to get them. He almost pounced on the bum as he entered the park.

"What the Hell's going on?"

"We think we found them," the bum said quietly, gesturing subtly to a van at the corner. "Get in. Byers and Langly will tell you what we found."

* * *

The professor and the rock star were again sitting among electronics. The professor didn't waste time. "They're still alive, as far as we know."

"Where?"

"An old sanitarium in upstate New York. They're going to be hard to get to, but we think we can manage it." His statement didn't include Brian.

The blond giant shook his head. "No way. I'm getting them."

"You're going to get them killed if you do," the professor said simply. "An FBI task force is going to attract a lot of attention in the wilds of New York state."

"No task force," Brian said quietly, mind going a mile a minute as he formulated a plan. "I've got two people I can trust. With you three, that makes six. More than enough."

" _Too_ many," the rock star argued.

"Look," the professor said, "I'll agree you could be some help, but this place is just too hard to get into to use a posse for the retrieval."

"Look," Brian stated angrily. "Why don't you just tell me where they are, and my friends and I will go get them."

The professor shook his head. "We don't need a fanfare for this, Agent Callahan. The three of us can--"

"--Do nothing!" Brian broke in angrily. "Look, I'll admit that you're good at hunting up information, but you don't know the first thing about retrieval operations, do you?" He almost snorted his derision as they remained silent, and tried to keep his anger under control as he slid the map the professor had been looking at over to him. "Now, where the hell are they?"

The two Gunmen exchanged glances, and the rock star shrugged warily. The professor leaned over the map, running his index finger along an old country road. "This," he said, resting his finger on a tired little dot on the page, "is the town of Cromby. The sanitarium is on the outskirts of town. Just north of the last motel there--The Land's End."

Brian nodded, committing the fastest route to memory. He headed to the back door of the van. "I'll call you when we have them," he declared a little condescendingly.

"You've got to get to them as soon as possible," the professor said, ignoring the agent's tone. "They won't have much time left."

"Why not?" Brian asked, fear rising in him again.'

"Because Gemini plans on trying to clone them as soon as possible. The preparation stage should be finished by now," the rock star explained.

Brian nodded grimly and exited the vehicle. If Sal was right, and they were actually changing their DNA, they had very little time left indeed. He didn't even know if they could be saved once he got them back--but he was damn well going to at least get them back.

He headed back to the office, his cellphone to his ear as he walked along the thoroughfare.

* * *

_J. Edgar Hoover Building  
4:03 pm_

Skinner paced angrily, pausing from time to time to stab at Brian Callahan with his flashing eyes. "Why wasn't I informed of this, Agent Callahan?"

Brian ducked his huge head, looking thoroughly ridiculous as he stood before his superior--easily four inches smaller than he--acting like a recalcitrant ten-year-old. "Sir, we felt we needed to keep our investigations secret--"

" _Our_ investigations, Agent Callahan?" Skinner jumped in angrily. "Who is _we?_ "

Brian almost couldn't get the name out. "Sal?"

Skinner just stared at him for a full minute, making the giant squirm. The Assistant Director shook his head, moving around his desk to the phone. "Kim," he said quietly, with no hint of the anger he held so tightly in check. "Could you call Salome Menschner at Quantico. I'd like to see her immediately."

"All right, Callahan," he said, turning to the agent again. "Tell me _everything._ "

* * *

_Cromby, NY  
8:41 pm_

Skinner crouched silently behind a screen of oaks, watching the old sanitarium. He was still fuming--but it wasn't as if it would do him any good. May and Callahan had done what they thought was right--and at least they'd had the good sense to bring him in before it was too late.

Callahan's idea of a small, unsupported, retrieval team would never have worked. How Callahan had expected three people to get two--very likely incapacitated--agents out of what was, for all intents and purposes, a military establishment, was beyond the older man. 

Not that Skinner had ever contemplated bringing in a full SWAT contingent. That would have been tantamount to murdering his missing agents. With the number of informants that the syndicate had in the Bureau, Mulder and Scully would have been dead before he'd even left D.C. And at this point, after everything the syndicate had been doing lately to get rid of the X-Files, Mulder and Scully, _and_ him, he wasn't sure he could make a deal with them. They'd as soon kill the two agents if they found out he knew.

So he was hiding in the woods surrounding the crumbling old building, waiting for dark, while a small, hand-picked group of marine troops were busy conducting "military exercises" just off shore, not ten minutes away.

Brian and Sal, for their part, sat farther back in the woods, feeling, more than vaguely, like a couple of kids who'd broken a window, and now had to face the wrath of their father. They both watched the woods around them carefully, trying to gauge when it would be dark enough to make their move.

Just when they were beginning to feel that they couldn't wait any longer, Skinner moved silently toward them, gun in hand. "Okay," he whispered. "It looks like they've switched shifts. This is going to be the best time we'll get."

The agents nodded, pulling into crouches and priming their guns. They'd decided that a quick, hard strike was the best chance they had. Skinner's military "escort" would come in from the coast, hopefully quickly enough to scoop them all up and take them to safety.

Brian found it almost amusing that they were going to end up using the military against itself. The three marine helicopters just offshore were part of a strike team that had been put together recently--just in case things in Lebanon got out of hand. Those marines were under the command of a young, justice-minded captain--who was, in turn, under the command of a skeleton of a man, named Johnson, who had been through hell with Skinner in Vietnam.

 _And I thought_ I _had contacts!_ Brian laughed to himself, letting his adrenaline flow as they reached the edge of the building. He took a deep breath, watched as Skinner slid carefully around to the rear entrance, and rushed in to cover him.

* * *

They'd been lucky. The sanitarium was relatively deserted this late in the evening. Even if it hadn't been, the small group was moving too fast for anyone to see more than a glimpse of them before one of the three took him or her out. Sal almost scared Brian with her ferocity. Adrenaline making him a little giddy, he reminded himself jokingly never to get on her bad side.

The labs had been hidden away in a sub-basement, and the trio slowed down considerably at this point, trying to keep hidden while they hunted the poorly-lit halls.

They been at it for nearly ten minutes, when Sal slipped silently into a large, dark room.

One wall was taken up by huge tanks--they looked like fish tanks. All of them were empty, however, and, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the wall, she moved on. She heard a hushed conversation going on ahead of her, and crouched down behind a bank of medical equipment to listen.

"He's not responding, sir," a young woman was saying. Sal tried to glance around her screen, but she couldn't see who "he" was without exposing herself. The young woman out in the darkness continued. "His reaction is similar to the Purity Control group's response to the second step of _that_ process."

She heard a deep, husky, old voice respond. "He's been exposed to the factor twice before," the old man mused, unconcernedly. "Perhaps that's what's causing the reaction."

"I'd say that's very likely, sir," the woman agreed. Sal realized with a shock that they sounded as if they were headed straight for her. She knelt down lower, trying to make herself invisible, as they came nearer, catching a whiff of spent nicotine as they headed toward the door.

"Get what you can for the study," the husky old man responded, as Sal heard the door open. "Then kill him."

She took a few deep breaths, tainted with the smell of fresh cigarettes, and waited for the door to close before standing up.

The one occupied exam table in the room was at the far end, but it was bathed in light. The man who lay on it was as pale as death, but he was still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Ears straining to keep a listen out for the young doctor's return, Sal approached him carefully.

"Fox?" she called quietly, as she reached him. She'd never even seen half of the machines he was hooked up to, but those she recognized didn't give her a lot of hope. His heart rate was distressingly low, his EEG all but flat.

Sal stood over him, indecisive, trying to figure out just what she would do to him if she unhooked the machines. The half of her brain that was still listening for the door alerted her to a sound, and she sprinted for another bank of machines behind the gurney, quietly drawing her gun.

Brian held his cargo with all the care due a fine vase. Her hair stringy and dull, her face white, Dana Scully was at least semi-conscious, but could do nothing but hang on as Brian slipped carefully into yet another room. He'd lost track of both Skinner and Sal during the search, and had had to stick to the shadows to avoid the small number of doctors and nurses roaming around at this late hour.

The room he'd entered was vast, with what looked like giant fish tanks lined up along one wall. It wasn't the fish tanks that caught his interest, however. It was the well-lighted gurney at the other end of the room.

Bothered by the idea of putting down his first find, Brian looked anxiously at the pale man lying on the table. He had no idea how he was going to carry both of them--even less clue how to disengage the many tubes and wires that were attached to the form before him.

Just as he was about to give up and try to find one of the others, Sal stepped out from behind the machines she'd used as a screen, very nearly scaring him to death.

"Jesus, Sal!" he breathed quietly. "What the hell are you trying to do?"

Sal ignored him, returning to her examination of Mulder and the tubes and wires that encased him. Muttering a rarely-spoken prayer, she began to disengage him from his cage.

Watching her carefully, Brian laid Scully out on another of the many gurneys that littered that area of the room, drawing his gun, ready for some sort of alarm to sound as Sal worked.

What happened was more luck than Brian would have given himself credit for having, as he watched Skinner slip silently into the room.

"Sir?" he called quietly. "We've got them both."

Skinner was across the room in a moment, looking down at the table, as Sal removed the last of the IVs from Mulder's arm. Ignoring his goddaughter’s startled gasp, Skinner threw Mulder over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and gestured silently for Brian to take Scully. He led the way out of the room at a run.

The trip back to the ground floor took longer than it should have, and Skinner and Brian were both sweating over the weight of their loads. Sal kept watch behind them, but, surprisingly, there was no alarm. No one came after them.

That piece of luck was beginning to make Skinner's teeth hurt.

He could clearly hear the sound of helicopter propellers as they neared the back door of the sanitarium, and he poured on extra speed, turning as he reached the door so that his back took the brunt of the connection, throwing the door open violently.

He saw now why there had been no pursuit inside. Anyone capable of coming after them was too busy with the _eight_ assault choppers that had suddenly appeared in the New York sky. Skinner reminded himself to buy Hal Johnson the biggest beer that old Marine had ever seen--provided, of course, that Skinner could get himself and the others to one of the two choppers not currently engaged with the sanitarium's security force.

Brian took a deep breath and ran for all he was worth. He hadn't thought that chopper was quite so far away, but the sound of rifles in the not-so-distant vicinity made the fifty yards seem like as many miles.

With a tremendous outrush of breath, he was in the chopper. Skinner was beside him, equally exhausted, equally redfaced, and though Brian hadn't seen her get ahead of him, Sal was already feverishly working on Mulder.

Brian laid Scully out carefully on the bench along the back of the cabin, calling to her anxiously for a moment before she opened her eyes for a few brief seconds. He smoothed down her hair, and whispered into her ear. "It's okay, Dana... It's all right."

"There'll be hell to pay for this one, Walt!" A bluff, impossibly thin man, roughly Skinner's age, appeared from the cockpit as the chopper took off, trailing away from the firefight below it.

Skinner nodded to his friend, a murderous look in his eyes. "Hell for someone, Hal. That's for sure."

* * *

 _Northeast Georgetown Medical_  
Washington, D.C.  
6:43 am  
Eight days later

Margaret Scully was lying on the beach again, gazing out into the bay as her husband and her baby girl sailed.

 _That skiff is really so small,_ she thought critically. _He'd better not take her out much later in the season, or she'll turn over in the waves._

As if thought produced action, Margaret caught sight of a thunderhead gaining force in the south. Bill must have seen it, but he went blithely on, showing Dana the best way to pull the sail around.

Maggie watched, more nervous at every moment, as the storm gathered strength. Bill seemed to know it was there, but he was so unconcerned. She hesitated briefly, about to stand and call them back to shore. Bill knew the sea. He'd never endanger their daughter.

But still the storm grew, gliding ever closer. It was on top of them before Maggie could scramble to her feet.

"Bill!" She felt herself screaming for all she was worth, but heard nothing, save the howling of the wind.

Bill stood, unmoving, in the bow of the ship, while Dana fought the sail, desperately trying to tack toward the shore, trying to regain some control, as the skiff tossed on the waves of this sudden storm.

Maggie held her breath, silently begging her husband to help the little girl, pleading for him to protect their daughter. But Bill stood firm, emotionless, as the wind caught the sail, throwing Dana violently into the rising waves.

"Dana!"

Margaret Scully woke with a start, her eyes immediately darting to her daughter's face.

Dana had grown paler as the days went on. It seemed that each time Margaret looked at her, there was less and less of her daughter in the bed before her.

Running a loving hand through her daughter's dull hair, Margaret couldn't bring herself to hope for another miracle. God had brought her baby back once...

Maybe that had been all He was willing to do.

_Menschner Residence  
9:50 am_

"Just sit down for a few, Bri," Sal called back to him as she rushed through her front door. "I'll be ten minutes."

Brian nodded, bone-weary, and took a seat on the couch.

"Do you want something to eat?" Sal asked, hanging her head out of the bathroom door. "There's... Hell, I don't have any cereal or anything. There's juice, though."

"No, thanks."

Brian wasn't up to eating--this last week, he hadn't been up to much. Certainly not up to working. Tallor had sent him home yesterday, with a stern command to either take a few personal days--and precious few of those he had left--or come into the office ready to get something accomplished.

Oh, well. He hadn't really planned on using those personal days for anything special.

He stretched himself out on the couch, his head hanging off of one end, his enormous feet off of the other.

He listened as Sal ran the shower, and closed his eyes. Spooky was being taken off the machines today. No one was arguing with the doctors--he'd fallen below the criteria in his living will two days ago, and the only prognosis now was a long, drawn-out death.

Dana was still breathing on her own--though they'd have to put her on a respirator soon. She'd been semi-conscious, off and on, for those first couple of days, but she'd been completely comatose since, and the doctors were at a loss.

As had happened a year and a half ago, they had no idea what was causing her steady decline--less idea about Mulder's more rapid one. They just seemed to be dying, and no amount of medication, no amount of therapy could help them.

Only a miracle...

Brian sighed mightily. The miracle that had brought Dana back that first time seemed unwilling to make a second appearance. She was getting weaker by the hour, and soon, like Mulder, she'd just slip away forever.

As he heard the shower shut off, heard the hairdryer firing up, Brian wondered what he'd done to deserve such a Hell. He'd gone through losing them once--he wasn't sure he could do it again.

Sal launched herself out of the bathroom, braiding her long hair as she went. "Okay, let's go."

Brian looked at her critically. Aside from the occasional trip home for a shower, or a brief meal caught in the hospital cafeteria, Sal had spent the last week and more shuttling between Mulder and Scully, and the wear showed in her bruised eyes and pale face. He thought, sometimes, that she wanted to be there for each of them when they died, and she was afraid she'd miss it.

"Sal," he said carefully. "Why don't you stay here for a couple of hours, and get some sleep? I'll be back at 1:00, and we can go back."

Her eyes grew suddenly cold. "I'll be fine, Brian. Let's just go, okay?"

"But, Sal--"

She held up a weary hand, and barked "Don't! ...Just... just don't, okay, Bri? Let's go."

_FBI Headquarters  
10:13 am_

Assistant Director Skinner dialed the number slowly. It had taken more of his outstanding favors than he supposed he could comfortably afford, to get that number. He knew they'd only let him use it once, and he was damned well going to make it count.

"Hello?"

Walter asked for him, fought for a moment with the solicitous-sounding young man on the other end, and was finally handed off to one of the few people he thought might be able to save his agents.

"Hello?" The proper, cultured English voice, pleasant even in its annoyance, made Skinner that much angrier.

"I have a deal to propose," he gritted. "And you don't have time to discuss it in committee."

_Northeast Georgetown  
6:15 pm_

Brian handed a cup of coffee to Scully's mother, who took it with an exhausted smile. "Thank you, Brian," she said softly. "For everything."

Brian hung his head. It only hurt more to think that Margaret actually felt that he had done something to be thankful for. By his own reckoning, all he'd done is raised her hope about her daughter, only to have it dashed again as she died. Mrs. Scully had buried this daughter once. Now, she'd have to face it a second time.

Another of the many nurses came in as they sat in silence, quietly injecting a clear liquid into the IV that hung by the bed, before leaving just as quietly.

Sal sat in the silence of Mulder's hospital room, just waiting. It was going to be soon. She marveled at the absence of the sounds given off by the machines they had so recently removed. Those pings and beeps and whirs had imparted a kind of life to the room. Without them, there was only Mulder, whose lungs still worked feebly, and the vague scratching of the EEG, as it described his almost non-existent brain waves.

He wasn't going to fight this, she told herself again. He was done now. He'd gotten no answers, he'd received no great revelations... But he wasn't fighting anymore. He was leaving...

She drifted into a worried sleep, oblivious of the nameless, faceless nurse, who walked in, injecting a clear liquid into Mulder's IV, and walked out.

_3:45 pm  
the next day_

"Hey, Sal," Brian called quietly.

Sal waited a moment before tearing her eyes away from Mulder's chest, which she had been watching, waiting for it to cease its feeble movement. "Hey."

Brian handed her yet another cup of coffee. "Did you want to go out and have a cigarette?" he asked. He'd given up trying to get her to sleep. She'd eat if he brought her food. Mostly, though, she was just waiting.

"No, thanks," she replied, though part of her mind and body screamed for the nicotine. "I'll stay here."

"I'll call you if--"

Her frozen eyes stopped him. "I'll stay."

Brian nodded, and got up to leave. Sal stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Brian, I'm sorry. Will you sit with me for a while? Please?"

He nodded, resumed his seat. "How's he doing?"

"It'll be soon, I think," Sal said, her eyes making the rounds of the few monitors they'd bothered to leave. "His breathing is slowing, and..." She broke off in amazement.

"What?" Brian asked, a slight edge of almost-panic to his voice.

Sal didn't answer, but instead pressed the nurse's button beside the bed, walking around to the EEG monitor. "He's got some activity here."

"What do you mean?"

She smiled a little tentatively. "Don't ask me how--his brainwaves have been nearly flat for a few days now--but he's got something going on in that brain of his. Not much, but something."

"You think he's coming out of it?" Brian asked incredulously, as a pair of nurses came in, checking vitals. One left almost immediately to summon a doctor.

Sal shook her head, but her smile brightened. "Not even close, but I think he might eventually."

As they stepped back to make room for the arriving doctor, Brian and Sal watched as Mulder's vitals crept ever-so-slowly toward something less dire. After ten minutes, the doctor turned to them. "What happened, exactly?"

Sal shook her head again. "I don't know. We were just sitting here, waiting, and I noticed some low-level activity on the EEG. I've been here for hours, and I hadn't noticed anything before."

The doctor nodded strangely. "Well, whatever's happened, he's climbing back. Don't get your hopes up, but..."

Brian finally allowed himself a smile. One miracle, just in time.

_7:58 pm_

Margaret sat, talking quietly to her daughter. "Fox is getting better, honey," she told her in a whisper. "They don't know how much better, but..." She stopped suddenly, unable to hold in the tears she felt.

"Oh, Dana," she breathed, sitting back in her chair, exhausted.

After hours of waiting, Margaret couldn't hold off sleep any more. And as she slept, she dreamed.

And so did Dana.

> _She was on the skiff, tacking around the bay with Ahab. It was a sunny day, and the breeze was just right. The sails were a little heavy for her, but Ahab had shown her the right way to pull them around, and she'd been practicing all day._
> 
> _Her mom was sitting on the shore, sunning herself. Charles sat nearby, working on yet another of his massive sandcastles. It was a perfect day. Then, she looked up, and saw the thunderhead._
> 
> _It was huge, and dark, and angry. And it was heading right for her. She looked to Ahab, but he seemed to be almost enjoying the coming storm, standing there in the bow, facing the gathering clouds._
> 
> _But a fear gripped Dana, so fierce and powerful that she almost couldn't pull the sail around fast enough. She felt the wind catch it at the last second, but didn't feel the blow that knocked her into the rising waves._

Again, Margaret felt herself screaming for all she was worth, but heard nothing, save the howling of the wind.

> _But Dana could hear her clearly. She heard her mother calling to her, and, glancing to the shore, struck out with powerful strokes, heading toward safety._

Margaret saw her daughter surface, saw her strike out toward the shore. But she didn't seem to make any headway. She swam hard, but she never came nearer to the shore--

> _She'd never reach the shore. She knew that now. The water was suddenly so cold and so thick, that she'd drown before she made it. Maybe if she headed back toward the boat..._
> 
> _But the boat was gone. Her father, their skiff. There was nothing left, just waves and the coming rain. She called to him, desperate. "Daddy!"_
> 
> _She got nothing in return._

"Baby!" her mother cried, hearing her daughter's plea. As hard as she tried, Margaret couldn't enter the water. She stood frozen, watching her daughter flounder.

> _"Daddy!" Dana called again, tears mixing with the salt spray on her cheeks. She got no answer, no help... And the water was calling her down..._
> 
> _It almost became peaceful after she sank for the final time. The water was warmer down here, thinner. She drifted almost comfortably..._

Brian walked in to Scully's room, bearing two cups of coffee. He almost dropped them as the alarms began to sound.

The rush of the doctors, the sound of the crash cart, seemed unable to wake Margaret Scully. Likewise, they seemed incapable of saving her daughter.

As Dana remained submerged, Margaret began to cry. Her husband was nowhere in sight, but still, she cried out to him. "Bill! Bill, please!" she begged, pleading tearfully for him to do something. And still, her daughter would not surface.

> _Dana floated in that peaceful water, drifting farther and farther below the surface. But suddenly, gently, hands seemed to bear her up. Strong hands, that smelled like the sea and felt comfortable and safe._
> 
> _"Ahab."_

Margaret was ready to give up when, miraculously, she saw her daughter coming toward shore, gliding along as if the water were calm, instead of the churning Hell Margaret saw before her. She cried her relief, the tears penetrating the deep sleep of a mourning woman in a hospital room.

Once again, her daughter was coming home.

* * *

_4:31 pm  
Five days later_

Dana Scully flinched at the hand in her hair, her eyes blinking open in surprise.

"It's okay, Dana," a deep, gentle voice assured her. "It's just me."

Her eyes found the speaker. Brian Callahan, a rough day's growth of beard on his chin, and joy in his eyes, stood over her, a smile splitting his face. "Hi."

She looked at him for a long moment, groggy, too disoriented to speak. When she finally found her voice, it was scratchy, old. "What happened?"

"It's a long story," he told her gently. "It can wait. How are you feeling?"

"Tired."

Brian smiled wider at that. Now that she was awake, a deep chuckle escaped him. "After two weeks' sleep? Gee, Dana. I'm surprised at you."

What he said didn't register on her, and she just looked vaguely around the hospital room. "Where am I?"

"Northeast Georgetown," he replied. "You know, all the nurses around here still remember you. You made quite an impression last time you were here."

 _The last time she was here._ Snatches of the night of the shooting, so long ago, with so little memory in between, came back to her suddenly. She started feebly. "Where's Mulder?"

"Three doors down." Sal Menschner's amused alto broke the silence, as she walked in from the door, where she'd been standing quietly.

"Is he okay?" Scully asked anxiously. She remembered being hit by a... dart? Something. And she remembered Mulder falling beside her.

Sal shrugged, but the light in her face reassured her friend. "Worse off than you, but he's making progress."

Margaret Scully returned to the room, coffee in hand, and Sal and Brian left quickly, leaving the mother and daughter to talk.

"How do you think this happened?" Sal asked, blowing out smoke as she sat with Brian on one of the many decks that the medical center sported.

It had been the topic of conversation ever since Mulder and Scully had begun to improve. As usual, Brian had no answer. "Maybe it was a miracle," he said, hardly believing it.

"No miracle did this, Bri," she replied confidently. "The only way they had any chance to get better would be if someone who knew about this 'illness' intervened."

"But why would they?" Brian wanted to know. "Why not just let them die. Let the secrets die with them?"

Sal blew her smoke out thoughtfully. "Maybe they didn't have a choice."

* * *

_Near Central Park  
New York City, NY_

The old Englishman turned off the portable phone decisively. After that first surprising negative reaction to the injection, Scully had begun to improve steadily, and had apparently awoken today. Mulder was also improving. Which got the syndicate out of a fair amount of trouble.

He didn't like this deal. But it was either save the two agents, or risk exposure. The Assistant Director might have been bluffing when he said he'd have copies of all the MJ files in the hands of fifteen sympathetic congressmen by sundown, but it didn't matter. Skinner had been hard with him, forcing a hand that he knew was untenable, making a bet that he knew the syndicate couldn't risk calling. 

And once again, their associate in Washington had jeopardized the entire project. Something would have to be done about him, and soon. He couldn't be allowed to continue this campaign of personal revenge. There was too much at stake.

The old man glanced casually at the nearby ashtray, where butts from his associate still sat, though the man had returned to Washington hours ago.

Something would have to be done...

* * *

_The End_


End file.
